In just ten days, the Tax Agency has received almost 300,000 requests, detecting numerous incidents in the crossing of data.
EFE
The fathers and mothers who expected joy in their bank accounts in the final stretch of the year due to the repayment of personal income tax from public benefits collected in 2014 and 2015 may see their aspirations frustrated. The flood of irregular claims and without the right to refund is causing a collapse in the offices of the Tax Agency (AEAT) which is slowing down the processing of hundreds of thousands of requests. The Treasury has given the order to verify case by case before proceeding with the payment, even if this means a brake on the entire process.
"The rush is not good". This is how officials from public offices summarize what is happening with the return of the maternity and paternity income tax. As La Información has learned, since the procedure to claim on the AEAT website was activated on December 3, close to 300,000 applications have been received, 60% of the total potential beneficiaries for this first tranche of fathers and mothers of 2014 and 2015, which may require a return this month. The problem is that not all of these claims are correct, in the sense that many do not generate the right to any refund from the Treasury, which is hindering the process because, practically, it is being reviewed on a case-by-case basis to avoid making mistakes.
When Minister María Jesús Montero detailed the claim procedure, she explained that the Government had decided to divide the process into two phases "for operational reasons." In order to "expedite refunds", a first tranche was set up for beneficiaries of benefits in 2014 and 2015 to request a refund of personal income tax this December, and a second for those of 2016 and 2017, starting in January 2019.
The procedure is simple: in the form (available on the AEAT website) all you have to do is specify the year in which you received the public benefit and provide a bank account number where you can deposit the amount improperly withheld. The problem is that the offices of the Tax Agency are receiving thousands of applications that do not meet the requirements, either because the years of collection of the benefit do not correspond to those that can be claimed in this first term, or because the refund is required. Personal Income Tax from years prior to 2014 (the last one not prescribed), or because Personal Income Tax was never paid for this concept, among other irregularities. Thousands of specific cases that officials are verifying one by one in the data crossing with Social Security.
From the union of technicians of the Ministry of Finance (Gestha) confirm that there is a "slowdown in the processing of rectifications of income statements for benefits received in 2014 and 2015." As they explain, there are "incidents in the information provided by Social Security that must be clarified to ensure that it is exclusively the benefits actually received in each year since 2014."
Given this circumstance, "a feeling of caution has spread," says the general secretary of Gestha, José María Mollinedo. "The Tax Agency does not want to make mistakes, nor do the officials who must resolve the requests want to do it wrong," he explains. "The political leaders are not willing to take responsibility for doing something wrong by doing it quickly either," say sources familiar with the process that the department headed by María Jesús Montero is closely monitoring.
The Treasury, according to the same sources, has given the order to "paralyze the requests that generate doubts and resolve only those that are clear." The aim is to avoid the mistake of returning extra money to a taxpayer, to later have to claim the refund, and the aim is to calculate the amounts to be paid without error. In the Ministry they assure that these are "specific cases, as is the case with all massive returns." Those responsible for returning the personal income tax to mothers and fathers defend that, in some cases, "inconsistencies" are being found and Social Security is being asked to verify the taxpayer data and determine whether or not they are entitled to a refund. In any case, and although they avoid providing figures, they explain that the income began to be executed since last day 5 and remember that the Treasury has given until April to complete the returns.
Some of these irregularities have to do directly with the expectations of many fathers and mothers who think they are beneficiaries and are not. A few days ago, La Información detailed how the Treasury will return personal income tax to less than half of fathers and mothers since 2014, simply because it was never withheld from the rest. It is not a minor matter and it is necessary to clarify that the rectification of declarations are complex procedures and the calculation of returns is not within the reach of the majority of taxpayers.
In fact, the Treasury technicians are waiting for a solution at the national level from the Tax Management Department of the AEAT in those cases in which the exemption from the maternity and paternity benefit determines that the obligation to declare no longer exists, as well as in those cases of those who did not testify because they were not obliged to do so. Thus, the technicians have asked to unify the criteria of not imposing sanctions for declaring after the deadline to workers who did not present the declaration because they were not obliged and now they have some amount to return.
We are also waiting for the IT Department to implement a program to recalculate declared deductions, and to be able to add new deductions such as rent, among others, in accordance with the limits of the new tax base.
Additionally, Gestha trusts that the Vice President and Minister of Equality will take advantage of the bill by which the exemption from these benefits will be extended to civil servant mothers and fathers -as Minister Montero advanced- to include the possibility of revoking the firm resolutions that dismissed the exemption of their maternity and paternity benefits, as well as the settlements that were made at the time, including these benefits when they were not declared.
In this sense, the Treasury technicians recall that they have already proposed to the Government an exceptional solution for a semester to request the return of said amounts in these cases similar to the solution that was given to returned emigrants, to whom interest was forgiven, surcharges and sanctions that the AEAT imposed on them, being able to even request the return of these last amounts that they had entered.
Another solution was the one that declared the capital gain from the dation in payment or from a foreclosure of the main residence exempt from January 1, 2014 and previous years that had not expired. In this context, they also ask that those who filed the individual return be able to opt for joint taxation and now it is more favorable for them.
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